by USA TODAY

by USA TODAY

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greek lawmakers have narrowly passed a crucial austerity bill by majority vote, but with heavy dissent from within the three-party governing coalition.

Immediately after the vote early Thursday and before the tally had been officially announced, two of the coalition parties expelled a total of seven dissenting deputies from their ranks.

The third party in the coalition, the small Democratic Left, mostly voted "present" - in essence abstaining from the vote.

The passage of the bill was a big step for the government to secure continued funding from the country's international creditors. Without the loans, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has said Greece will run out of euros on Nov. 16.

Hundreds of protesters clashed with Greek riot police Wednesday while more than 80,000 demonstrated outside Parliament before the vote.

The cutbacks are worth â?¬13.5 billion ($17 billion) over the next two years.

Protesters hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at lines of riot police guarding Parliament, who responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades, and the first use of a water cannon in Greece in years.

Demonstrators in the packed crowd ran for cover as running battles broke out with police. Clouds of tear gas rose from Syntagma Square.

Inside the building, lawmakers interrupted the debate as Parliament employees went on strike to protest cuts to their wages brought by Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras in an amendment to the austerity bill. Stournaras declared minutes later that he was withdrawing the amendment.

Greece's next bailout loan installment of â?¬31.5 billion, out of a total of â?¬240 billion, is already five months overdue.

The measures debated include new deep pension cuts and tax hikes, a two-year increase in the retirement age to 67, and laws that will make it easier to fire and transfer civil servants who are currently guaranteed jobs for life. The country is suffering a deep recession set to enter a sixth year, and record high unemployment of 25 percent.

"You are throwing people onto to the street, people who need a few more years till they get their pensions," said Panagiotis Lafazanis, parliamentary spokesman for the main opposition Syriza, or Radical Left, party. "What will happen to them. Will they starve? ... This is an illegal and unconstitutional law."

Opposition parties accused the government of trampling on Greece's constitution with the proposed cuts in pensions and benefits, and complained that the bill, several hundred pages long, was too complex to be debated in a single session.

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